Damian Lillard scored a career playoff-high 40 points and handed out 10 assists on Saturday as the Portland Trail Blazers beat reigning NBA champions Golden State Warriors 120-108 to narrow the gap in their playoff series.
Al-Farouq Aminu collected 23 points and 10 rebounds, while C.J. McCollum added 22 points for the Trail Blazers, who trimmed the deficit in the best-of-seven Western Conference second-round series to 2-1.
The Trail Blazers will try to level the series when they host Game 4 later today.
Photo: EPA
Lillard connected on 14 of 27 shots from the field, including eight of 13 from three-point range.
“We were just a lot more aggressive, we played a lot smarter down the stretch than we did the last game,” Lillard said. “I think tonight we kept doing what was working for us.”
Aminu was eight-for-nine from the field, making four three-pointers for a Blazers team that withstood a career playoff-high of 37 points from Golden State’s Draymond Green, who also pulled down nine rebounds and dished out eight assists.
Klay Thompson added 35 points for the Warriors, who were again without injured star Stephen Curry.
The young Portland team kept their nerve in the face of a strong start from Golden State. Lillard scored 25 points and Aminu contributed 11 points in the second quarter as the Blazers took a 58-46 lead into halftime.
Thompson had 24 in the half for the Warriors, who were outscored 36-18 in the second period.
The Warriors used a 9-0 scoring run to pull within 105-94 with 5 minutes, 25 seconds remaining, but Portland scored the next five points and the Warriors never got within 12 the rest of the way.
“I thought we got out-worked,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “Even though we had a couple of guys who scored a lot of points we didn’t get the flow or rhythm we needed to play at a high level.”
There was some good news for the Warriors as Kerr said Curry, nursing a sprained right knee, had his first “actual basketball” workout and came out of it well.
Whether that means Curry might be ready to play in Game 4, Kerr did not know.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Kerr said. “We’ll put him into a three-on-three [workout] and see how he does.”
In Miami, Kyle Lowry scored 33 points to help the Toronto Raptors overcome the loss of center Jonas Valanciunas and beat the Heat 95-91.
Lowry, who struggled with his shooting in the first two games of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference second-round series, connected on 11 of 19 attempts from the floor as the Raptors took a 2-1 series lead.
“I felt it was a matter of time before my shots would go in,” Lowry said. “I just wanted to be aggressive. I’ve got great friends and great mentors in my life. And every last one of them told me to keep playing — stop fighting myself and continue to grind it out.”
Lowry was three-of-three from three-point range in his 15-point third quarter. He scored 14 points in the fourth period when his jump shot over Heat veteran Dwyane Wade with 31 seconds to play gave the Raptors a three-point lead.
Miami’s Joe Johnson missed a three-pointer with 16.8 seconds left that would have tied the score.
Miami were led by Wade, who scored 18 of his 38 points in the third period.
He had 11 points in the fourth quarter, but missed a contested three-pointer with 9.5 seconds left with Miami down by four.
Both teams saw key big men depart early with injuries.
Heat center Hassan Whiteside reinjured his right knee with 10:53 left in the second quarter. He had hurt the knee in the series opener, but continued to play.
This time Whiteside, who led the NBA in blocked shots this season, left the game with six points and no rebounds in eight minutes.
Toronto’s Lithuanian center Valanciunas, who averaged 19.5 points and 13 rebounds in the first two games, had 16 points and 12 rebounds when he sprained his right ankle with 8:53 left in the third.
“They lost their rim protector [Whiteside] and we lost ours,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “We’ll see what happens [going forward].”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB